


it's my own desire (it's my own remorse)

by bellabeatrice



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Unhealthy Relationships, Villain Harley Keener
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 05:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21230573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabeatrice/pseuds/bellabeatrice
Summary: Peter Parker is running, running away from his identity, from his past, from his pain, his regrets. He’s running away from love. Then, he runs into Harley Keener, the perfectly intoxicating boy who teaches Peter how to love again.“And what would you do for the one you loved?”“Anything,” Peter replies, without hesitation. “I would do anything for you.”Parkner Halloween Week 2019 Day Five: Apple Picking, Wheelbarrows, “Trust Me.”





	it's my own desire (it's my own remorse)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” I listened to the Lorde cover while writing this, but the original by Tears for Fears slaps. Read the tags! This is a very self-indulgent dark!Parkner story, but I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Two universal truths govern Peter Parker’s world. One: He is in love with Harley Keener. Two: Harley Keener loves him back. These truths are the reason he is alive. These truths are the reason he wants to be alive.

“Let’s go apple picking, Harls. Please?” Peter wraps his body around Harley’s, burrowing into him as if seeking warmth. He never can find it in Harley’s skin, cold as the bitter wind.

Harley looks up from a partially disassembled gun with a groan. “Really, hun? We’re on the run, and you want to go apple picking?”

“It’s your fault we can’t have any fun anymore,” Peter grumbles, pulling away from Harley. “You’re the one who almost got us caught.”

“What did you say?” Harley whips around, gripping Peter’s wrists tightly. Peter just stares back at him with a smirk, eyes narrowed in a challenge. Call him a brat, but he loves making Harley mad, loves when all of his attention was on Peter, bruising though it may be.

Peter leans it until Harley’s blank face filled all of his field of vision. “I said it’s your fault we can’t go apple picking, so now you have to make it up to me by taking me apple picking.”

A smile creeps onto Harley’s face, cold and unforgiving, and it sends delicious chills down Peter’s spine as his spidey-sense goes off. He lives for this feeling. “What happens if I don’t, sugar?”

“I leave.” Peter shrugs off Harley’s grip on his wrists easily with only a hint of his superstrength before walking out of the open garage door. He doesn’t look back. Harley always comes after him. Rule number two. 

Only a minute passes before Peter hears Harley’s yell of frustration and the crunch of footsteps against the concrete driveway. A hand grips his shoulder and yanks him gently backwards. Peter falls into Harley’s arms, smiling up at his unamused face. “Get in the car,” Harley growls, but it sounds more like a sigh of resignation.

Peter whoops and sprints back to the garage, leaping into the passenger seat of the two-door convertible they had nabbed from the last place they camped out at. The place was a mansion, and there were at least a dozen other cars in the sprawling garage complex on the land, so Peter felt perfectly justified and taking the second-most expensive car of the lot. They would have taken the most expensive one, but Harley hated white cars. “Where are we going?”

Harley slides into the driver’s seat and revs the engine. “Apple picking.”

Peter’s triumphant laughter rings through the crisp, fall air as they speed through the little village, and soon enough, Harley joins him.

From the moment Peter met Harley, they’ve been running. Running away from the past, from the lies, from the secrets that destroyed them. Peter was running from his identity, from the sudden collision of the personas he had fought so hard to keep separate. Harley was running from death, from the grief that followed and threatened to swallow him whole.

He picked up Peter in a weathered pickup truck, red hot and shinier than a wax apple. “You’re that Parker kid, ain’t you?”

“You know me?” Peter gripped the door handle, ready to leap out if need be.

Harley threw his head back and laughed, and Peter’s heart beat wildly in the few seconds he had his eyes completely off the road. “Do I know you? Stark never shut up about you, especially when you were dead. You’re one of the ones he was able to bring back. Lucky bastard. He got everything he wanted in the end, even death.”

“I don’t think he wanted to die.”

“Everyone wants to die. Most people just don’t acknowledge it.”

Peter turned to face the other boy. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Harley Keener.” He turned to face Peter, sunglasses slipping down to perch at the end of his nose. At the sight of those eyes, as blue as the hottest flame, Peter’s breath caught in his throat, and he was captivated. After several moments, Harley grinned, a wide, face-splitting grinned that showed off every tooth, pearl-white and sharp-edged with a gap between his two front teeth. It was a smile Peter would fall in love with, become obsessed with. “I’m real glad to meet you, darling.”

“Yeah,” Peter gasped, breathless in the face of the allure of Harley Keener. “Yeah, me too.”

Peter perches on top of an apple tree, vigorously shaking it. Harley stands below with a wheelbarrow, gazing up at his laughing lover. The wheelbarrow is overflowing with apples, and they’ve only been in the orchard for ten minutes.

“Do you think we have enough?” With a twirl, Peter leaps down from the tree, landing beside the wheelbarrow in a crouch.

Harley raises an eyebrow. “How many do you think we need? Because it looks like we have enough to feed an elementary school.”

Peter’s eyes light up at the idea, despite Harley’s sarcasm. “That’s brilliant!”

“Is that not what you were gonna do originally? It sure looks like it.”

Peter bends over and begins digging through the wheelbarrow, steadfastly ignoring Harley’s burning gaze against his back. “I’m looking for the perfect apple.”

“Perfect apple for what?”

“I don’t know. I’ll know it when I see it.”

Harley is quiet for a moment, and if Peter didn’t know better he would have thought Harley left him. “What about this one?”

Peter’s head shoots up. Harley stands, inches away from his face, tossing a glittering red apple up in the air. Visually, it’s perfect: there’s no blemishes on its skin, the color is uniform and gorgeous, and its shape is flawlessly round and plump. It glitters in the light of the setting sun, and Peter can’t help but stare, entranced.

“It’s perfect.”

Harley Keener was perfect.

A part of Peter knew that people couldn’t be perfect, especially people as messed up as Harley. At first, Peter wanted to help him, to fix him. But then he fell in love with him.

Harley never drove with his eyes on the road, stole from the rich, burned his own house down, killed a man for killing his sister. Harley was a genius, demanded too much of life, had seen too much death, knew too much about love. Harley taught Peter how to build, how to fix, how to mend the broken things in life, taught Peter how to fall in love again.

There was nothing wrong with that Harley, nothing for Peter to fix. He was just a man driven mad, and he was a man Peter couldn’t help but fall in love with.

“There’s something you can do for me, sweetheart,” Harley whispered as they lay in the back of the pick-up. Peter curled in closer to Harley and tore his gaze away from the stars to look up at him. 

Peter curled in closer to Harley and tore his gaze away from the stars to look up at him. “Anything.”

“I need a gun.” 

Peter got him a gun. He went out as Spider-Man and stopped an armed robbery in the nearest city, confiscating the guns from the robber and swinging away to meet Harley before the police even showed up the site. 

That was the first time Harley kissed him, the cold metal of the loaded gun held tightly in their joined hands, pressed snug against their chests. Peter would never get tired of it, of the thrill of love, the thrill of Harley, intoxicating and alluring and-

Perfect.

Yeah, Peter thought, sighing against cold, dry lips. Everything about Harley was perfect.

If Harley was a fruit, he’d be the apple in his hands. Perfect, dangerously perfect, but intoxicating.

“Where’d you find that?” Peter breathes, trembling hand reaching out to touch the glistening fruit.

Harley throws it up in the air again, catching it and yanking it away from Peter’s outstretched fingers. “Uh-uh. No touching.”

Peter withdraws his fingers with a pout. “Where’d you find that?” he repeats.

Again, Harley ignores his question and keeps his eyes trained on the apple going up and down, landing with a smack in Harley’s hand every time. “I have a question for you.”

Peter tears his eyes away from the gleaming fruit to look at Harley’s face. “Yes?”

“Would you kill for me?”

“Yes.” He has, in fact. Peter doesn’t understand where this is going, but he plays along anyway.

“Would you die for me?”

“Yes.”

“I have a better question. Would you live for me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure about that?” Harley laughs. “Everyone wants to die. Don’t you?”

“I don’t care.” Peter takes a deep breath and starts talking, words tumbling out of his mouth faster than he can think. “I don’t care about living or dying. All I care about is you. Don’t you see, Harley? I love you!”

“And what would you do for the one you loved?”

“Anything,” Peter replies, without hesitation. “I would do anything for you.”

Peter ran away from Harley after two years together. He doesn’t remember why, probably something about morals, about crossing lines, but he does remember that Harley found him after three days.

It was Harley who taught Peter how to ride a motorcycle. The thought came to Peter unbidden as a familiar red pickup pulled up next to him, and he drove faster, trying to get away. Get away from what? He doesn’t remember now. Surely it wasn’t that important.

Peter felt the break before he heard it. His spidey-sense went off, but he was helpless as the sound of metal against metal screamed loudly in his ears. Whoever the thing belonged to hadn’t properly broken it in, and it was falling apart underneath him. All the while, Harley’s truck loomed closer and closer until the motorcycle broke down, and Peter hit the ground, rolling to a stop at the same time as the truck did a scant two meters between the front bumper and Peter’s body.

“Are you insane?” Harley yelled, getting out of the truck and slamming the door. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Where the hell have you been?”

“Trying to get away from you!” Peter screamed back, backing away as Harley approached. It tasted like a lie. If he really wanted to get away he could. Harley was just a human, and Peter was a superhuman, and it would be so easy to escape from Harley if he really wanted to. But he didn’t. Harley knew that too, by the look of the grin spreading across his face.

Harley kept stepping forward. Peter stopped stepping back. “What are you so afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” Peter stammered, whole body screaming at him to run away as Harley advanced.

“What are you running from?”

“I don’t know!” Peter screamed, holding a hand out when Harley was within arm’s reach. “I don’t know!”

“I think I know,” Harley said, obediently coming to a stop. “You’re scared of love.”

“I’m not scared of love. Why would I be scared of love, Harley? I love you.”

Harley took Peter’s outstretched hand in his and pressed a kiss to each fingertip between his words. “You’re scared of heartbreak, then. You’re scared of the pain and the grief and the despair and the feeling that the world is going to end. You are terrified of it because you’ve felt it. How many people do you know have died, sweetie? How many of those deaths did you cause yourself?”

“Too many,” Peter whispered, eyes glazed over and staring at the space past Harley’s ear. “Far too many.”

“You’re scared of me.” Harley laced his fingers with Peter’s and placed his other hand on Peter’s hip, and Peter felt his touch burning, burning cold through his t-shirt to blaze against his skin. “You’re scared of what you see in me. You see yourself, what you would be if you succumbed to all that grief and guilt inside of you. I’m crazy, ain’t I? I’m what they call insane, and you don’t want to end up like me.”

“That’s not true, Harley. I love you.”

“You can fall in love with what you fear, darling. It’s okay.”

The sound of a horn startled both of them. Peter blinked back tears and watched as a car skid and crumpled against the bumper of Harley’s truck. The driver got out and slammed the door, approaching them and cursing. Peter was worn out, stretched thin, and his senses were overloaded. They always were around Harley. He reached out and pulled a gun out of the holster sitting against Harley’s hip.

“I wouldn't do that, if I were you,” Harley warned, eyes trained on Peter’s face. Peter wasn’t watching Harley. He watched the angry driver approach, and when he was within range -

He shot him. The man wasn’t dead, judging by the way he was groaning in pain, but he wouldn’t interfere with Peter and Harley anymore.

Peter turned his attention back to Harley, still clutching the gun. “What were you saying?”

“You,” Harley breathed, and there was a new light in his eyes, an emotion Peter had never seen before. It drew him in. “You are a wonder, Peter Parker.”

With a shaking hand, Peter pointed the gun against Harley’s head. “Let me go.”

“You and I both know that you could overpower me in a second, and you wouldn’t even need a gun to do it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Peter said loudly. “Let me go. You have this spell or something on me, and I can’t get away from you. You’re in every one of my waking thoughts, in every one of my dreams. I’m scared of you. I hate you. But I want you. Harley, I love you, and I don’t even want to. Let me go.”

Harley began to laugh, a grin plastered on his face, the same grin, the same laugh Peter had fallen in love with. “There is no spell, no curse. You’re delusional.”

“Look at what you’ve done to me!” Peter yelled, pressing the barrel of the gun even harder against Harley’s temple. I’d kill for you, Harley. I’ve hurt people for you. And you say this isn’t a curse?”

“No,” Harley sighed, curling a finger under Peter’s chin. “It’s just love, Peter. I love you.”

“I have done terrible things for you,” Peter said, voice trembling, but sounding more sure of himself than ever, imbued with a dangerous confidence, the heady power of wielding a gun, of holding someone’s life in his hands. “What you would you do for me?”

“Anything,” Harley sang. “I would do anything for you.”

“Anything, hmm?” Harley circles around Peter, whose spidey-sense screams at him, overwhelming him with the familiar fear that Harley brought with him. God, how Peter craves it. 

“Anything,” Peter begs, even though he’s not even sure what he’s begging for. “Harley, please.”

Harley comes to a stop in front of him, inches away, and crooks a finger under Peter’s chin, forcing him to look up. “You’re so good.”

“For you,” Peter finishes, breathless. “I’m good for you.”

Harley grins at that, and Peter’s heart beats impossibly harder. He sees a glint of red in his peripheral vision, a glint that causes his spidey-sense to shriek even louder, but Peter is helpless to do anything but watch as Harley holds the apple between their faces, right against Peter’s lips. “Bite.”

Peter takes the apple in his hands, and Harley lets him go, lets Peter stumble back a few inches, captivated by the apple. It’s impossibly, undeniably perfect, and to be that perfect in such an imperfect world must be a sin. “Why?”

“Do you trust me?” Peter’s gaze is drawn away from the apple, and he looks into Harley’s eyes, shaded by the shadows of the trees but shining brighter than they ever have before.

“I do.”

At Harley’s nod, Peter brings the apple to his lips but keeps his eyes trained on Harley’s. His fingers are still, surprisingly void of trembling, as he presses the smooth skin of the fruit against his lips and slowly, ever so slowly, sinks his teeth into it.

Poison, his brain screams at him as his body goes limp and his vision fades. The apple drops from his fingers and thuds against the ground. It’s poisoned.

A familiar sound rouses Peter from the blackness that envelopes him like a warm blanket. It’s the thrum of a piano, chords played in a minor key, lyrics crooned in a haunting voice. It’s the song playing in Harley’s pickup when he first met Peter.

“Dance with me?” Peter whirls around, expecting to find Harley behind him, but he’s not there. Nothing but darkness surrounds him, and the voice echoes all around him, carried on an invisible wind. 

Peter steps forward shakily. “Harley?” he calls. There’s no answer. “Harley!”

“I’m right here, sweetie.”

“Where?” Peter cries, spinning in circles until he’s nauseous. “Harley, where are you?”

“Behind you.”

“You’re not. I can’t see you.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“No! No, Harley. Please, just tell me where you are.” Peter falls to his knees, head spinning, and buries his head in his hands as he cries. “Please, Harley. Please.”

A hand falls on his shoulder, but Peter doesn’t look up, scared that it’s just an illusion, just something in his head. “Peter? Peter, it’s me. Look up.”

Peter has never been able to deny that voice. He looks up and meets Harley’s eyes, burning blue, burning darker than he’s ever seen them before, and Peter is drawn in. He feels like he’s falling, but when he reaches out, Harley isn’t there. It’s just blue, dark blue, flickering lighter with every breath until it’s the color of Harley’s eyes. More specifically the color of Harley’s eyes when Peter does something that pleases him. It’s the color that draws Peter in every time. 

“Boo!” Peter flinches but turns around slowly, scared that Harley’s voice is still just an illusion but needing to see him all the same. Harley is actually there, head bowed, hand outstretched for Peter to take. “Will you dance with me now?”

“Since when have you ever wanted to dance with me?” Peter asks, taking Harley’s hand.

Harley yanks him in roughly, placing his other hand on Peter’s waist. He smiles, and a laugh slips out as they begin waltzing to a familiar melody. “Since I first laid eyes on you, darling.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I never thought you’d let me.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet, letting his head fall against Harley’s chest as the other boy led him in the dance. “Do you love me, Harley?”

“Of course I do.”

“Say it. I want to hear you say it.” 

Peter feels Harley press a tender kiss to the top of his head, the most affection Harley has ever shown him. “I love you, Peter.”

“I love you too.” Peter raises his head to look into Harley’s eyes, bright and blue and biting. “Kiss me?”

Harley obliges. He wraps Peter in his arms and presses his lips against Peter’s, and Peter melts into the touch, attaches himself to the feeling of the other boy like a tongue attaches to a frozen metal pole, and he knows it will hurt to peel himself away later, but he doesn’t really want to ever have to peel himself away, so he’ll use the pain as an excuse to never let go. 

The world falls away around him. The blue blazes brighter and brighter until it’s blank.

“Peter.” This time, he doesn’t hesitate. He turns around, and there is Harley in a white suit, holding a bouquet of blue roses in his hands.

“Harley,” Peter gasps, like the name is a prayer. He runs toward Harley, who drops the bouquet and sweeps the boy off the ground, up in his arms, and Peter laughs.

When Harley sets Peter down, he doesn’t let go. “My sweet boy. You always come running back to me.”

“Always,” Peter repeats with a wink. Harley smiles. “Harley, I have a question.”

“Anything, darling.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Harley stops gently rocking them from side to side, which Peter hadn’t even realized he was doing.“Do what?”

“Kill me.”

Harley laughs, and it echoes around the white room. “Peter, baby. You’re precious.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I didn’t kill you.”

“What do you mean?” Peter exclaims, shoving Harley away from him. “The apple, it was poisoned.”

“Yes, but it didn’t kill you.”

“Then what is this?” Peter spreads out his arms, gesturing to the space around them. “What is this if it isn’t heaven?”

Harley steps forward, placing his hands on Peter’s hips again. Peter lets him. “It’s just a dream.”

“It doesn’t feel like a dream.”

“But it is.” Harley leans in close, lips hovering millimeters above Peter’s ears. “All you have to do is wake up.”

Peter wakes to the feel of Harley’s lips against his, a pressure like Harley is trying to suck the poison out of Peter’s system. Maybe he is, but it’s not working because Peter’s body is on fire, set ablaze by the poison coursing through his system.

“Harley,” he breathes against the boy’s mouth. “God, I love you.”

Harley pulls away, a wicked grin plastered on his face. His body, pressed against Peter, is even colder now that Peter’s body burns. He welcomes the feeling. “Tell me, Peter. What does it feel like to fall in love?”

“Like this,” Peter gasps, breathless under his lover’s frigid gaze. “It feels like this.”

“Go on.”

“It feels like a breath of winter air in the middle of summer, like a drink of cold water against an empty stomach. It feels like blue fire against my skin, like dry ice against my flesh. It feels like a bed of blue roses, thorns and all. It feels like your laughter, like your smile. It feels like a song in a minor key, like metal crumbling beneath me. It feels like you. All of you, Harley Keener. I’m in love with you.”

As Peter dissolves, atoms swimming in the mixture that is Harley Keener and his poison, he drafts a set of rules. 

One: He is in love with Harley Keener. Two: Harley Keener loves him back.

The world may be chaotic, life with Harley may be unpredictable, but as long as these things stand true, then it means he is alive. It means he is okay.

Harley’s cold hand cradling his cheek brings him back to the present. “Are you okay, my love?”

“Yeah.” Peter looks past Harley’s face, hovering above his, to the sky, streaked pink and yellow and purple by the setting sun. His heart hammers against his chest, but when he drags his gaze back to Harley’s eyes, the same silver-blue they’ve always been, Peter calms. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on Tumblr: @parknerplease


End file.
